Tiny spider web in the rosemary bush, holding the morning's raindrops all day. Funny what a difference a slightly different angle of view makes! 

Finally, another sunny day! Warm, even. The light shines into the forest, highlighting a fern, below, and 'youth on age', or Piggy-back plant, Tolmiea menziesii, above.

And another garden day - the sun is out, and so is a poppy. 

 Day lily petals - they have a sheen to them, and some fluffy decoration.

 Another kitty day - Apollo in the garden, looking grumpy.

 Because he had been booted from his new favorite place - the chair with the blanket out on the porch. He would spend all day and all night if he could!

And, yay - a whole pile of new cat toys! Love, love, love!

 This LBJ (little brown job) was happy to eat the grass seeds in the garden, chip-chip-chipping when I got too close.

The last blooms at the top of the foxglove stalk!

More fun in the garden!

 Kitty having fun, too, hiding in the tall grasses!

Today is our 35th anniversary, and we wanted to do something special. So we went to the "Paddle to Swinomish", the annual gathering of all the Native tribes around the Pacific Northwest. They paddle their canoes from their reservations to whichever tribe is hosting the event that year. This year it is at the Swinomish Reservation, across the channel from the little town of LaConner. The Tribe built a new park with shelters shaped like the traditional cedar woven hats.

We were there for the arrivals - this was the first canoe to arrive.

Then more and more started coming in. Each tribe chanted while they paddled, so you could hear them before you could see them.

Many members wore cedar hats, and some wore carved wooden masks.

 It had started to rain, and it just kept getting wetter and wetter! The landing site was a small island created on the shore, so that the current wouldn't interfere with the canoes trying to land.

 When they landed, they continued to sing their chants while being welcomed by the other tribes. 

 One of the cedar hats. I would have loved to get more photos of the hats, but it was way too wet, and we had to leave sooner than we wanted.

 The gathering will last over a week, and the tribes will have "protocol", or potlatch, which is when they present gifts to the other tribes and share with them. It has become a very important part of their heritage. They expected over 100 tribes to paddle, with thousands more attending, some from as far away as New Zealand! We were hoping to find our friends in the Snoqualmie Tribe, but nobody could point us in the right direction, so we were unable to find them.

 In the garden the Lady's Mantle captures the overnight dewdrops, sparkling in the early morning sunshine.

Saturday evenings are the Ranger talks at South Whidbey State Park, and tonight it was about our local raptors, so Barb, Marjorie and I went. There was a great view of the Olympics and Puget Sound, and local marine traffic catching the light of the setting sun.

 Unfortunately, we also caught the light of the setting sun, and it made the slide show almost invisible! But the Speaker was good, and she had recordings of the bird calls, so it was fun. A bit mosquito-y, but fun!

 Earlier in the afternoon, Barb and I went to Carol's 70th birthday party, given by her stepdaughters at their beach house. It was a beautiful afternoon with good food and company, sitting out on the deck. All in all, a nice day!

Berries have been dominating my photos lately, and for good reason! It's a bumper crop this year, and I have 5 different kinds of berries growing right around the house! The salmonberries are mostly done, and the big blackberries haven't started yet. But today I ate a bowl with (from left) thimbleberries (red), black caps (or black raspberries) and the trailing Pacific Blackberry (or dewberry). All are native to this area. I especially like the thimbleberry - it has no thorns!!!

When we go to the mountains to pick black huckleberries, one of the signs that it's the right time for the berries to be ripe is the fireweed blossoms. This is the stage they are at when we are usually there. Here at sea level, they've just begun blooming, and the thimbleberries and black raspberries are ripe. The blackberries aren't started yet - they're in full bloom, though.  

I liked the purple of the fireweed next to the yellow-green of the thimbleberry leaves.

The weather has been so nasty, I didn't even notice that my daylilies are blooming! These are bulbs I brought back from my mother's garden in Ohio.

And I cracked up when I saw this photo - the bee's Butt! He flew into the frame just as I shot it!

This is my big Garage Sale find - a large set of these wonderful Silver Leaf glasses. 6 each of the larger ones, and 10 of the smallest. Turns out they were made by Libby in the 1950's, so they're actually 'vintage'! No wonder I like them so much!

This is the cover of the little journal we worked on after our Photo Crawl last Sunday. I haven't finished all of the inside pages, but I used photos of everyone's journal to create a cover for the photo book we're making. No pre-view of that yet - you'll see it when everyone gets theirs!

It looks like we'll have a very good berry year - the salmon berries have been great so far, and now the thimbleberries are ripe and the bushes are loaded. This one is just outside my door, so very handy for nibbling. I also have a volunteer black raspberry in the yard, which is also loaded and beginning to ripen. Yum!!

This is the seedhead of a Cow Parsnip plant in the ditch. They can get over 8' tall - this one was about 5'. The flowers were white, but the seeds are a gorgeous purple color, and dry to a pale brown. It turns out these are not poisonous, but are easily confused with Water Hemlock, which is the most poisonous plant in the US. The leaves are quite different, so I  was glad to find out  this isn't poisonous, although contact with the plant will cause a poison-ivy type rash. I was very careful not to touch it!

It had poured all night and into the morning - actually, it rained off and on most of the day. Later, though, it cleared a little, then we had a shower and a rainbow! I don't think it can be seen in the photo, but there was a double at one point.  

Coming home late from Sally's Game Night With The Girls, the rain was spotty, and there was mist rising from the road, only visible in my headlights or the streetlamps. So I tried to get a shot through the windshield (did I mention it was a bit rainy?), and although you can't really make out the mist very well, I caught a bonus when a car approached in the other lane. I was stopped in the road - not driving!

Bug on a daisy

 A bright light caught my eye out the east window - wait a minute, it's late in the afternoon! But this cumulus cloud was so white, and it was catching the light from the setting sun. It really stood out against the dark sky and all the other gray clouds.

 The Ocean Spray (Holodiscus discolor) is really full this year - such a pretty blossom when you inspect it closely. Some red huckleberries are already ripe, too!

 This is the front cover of the journal we worked on after the photo crawl. Gwen made the blank journals from newspaper sheets that she gessoed, then folded into a book. We had a blast creating the pages using our photos printed on instant printers and ephemera that we picked up during the day. I will maybe add some more to my cover, or not!

My Chinese astrology sign is the snake, so Cathi got each of us pins with our signs - very cute!